Following on from his second place finish at the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest, Käärijä has revealed that he plans to release a new album next year.
This will be Käärijä’s second album
In an interview with Irish news outlet Hotpress Käärijä revealed that he intends to release a new album album next year. This would be his second ever album release. His first, Fantastista, which compared to ‘Cha Cha Cha’ is a tad more mellow, achieved managed to reach 21st place in the Finnish charts in 2020.
Who is Käärijä
Käärijä is the stage persona of Jere Pöyhönen, a 29-year-old singer songwriter from Vantaa, a suburb of the Finnish capital Helsinki. He first started his journey into music learning how to play the drums, growing to music production when he was 20. As well as this, he had a particular passion for hockey.
In 2014, Jere was rushed to hospital when he was diagnosed with the bowel disease ulcerative colitis, which results in ulcers throughout the colon. The condition worsened until Jere’s life was threatened due to the illness. Emergency surgery resulted in his colon being removed, leaving him with a stoma. The scar eventually healed and can be seen on Jere’s lower right abdomen. However, the incident signalled a turning point in his artistic career, allowing him to focus solely on producing music.
Jere later began to make music as Käärijä in 2017, a play on words for rapping and rolling. Several of the songs in Käärijä’s discography relate to gambling, which ties into the ‘roll of the dice’ motive in his stage name. After releasing music independently, Käärijä was signed to Monsp Records. Two subsequent singles – “Koppi tules” and “Nou roblem” were released. This culminated in his first studio album, Fantastista, being released in 2020. Following this, Käärijä was formally signed to Warner Music Finland.
His song for Eurovision 2023 – “Cha Cha Cha” – was written by Käärijä himself, as well as Jukka Sorsa, Aleksi Nurmi and Johannes Naukkarinen.
If you’d like to learn more about him, Tim and Rory had a chance to interview in Amsterdam and Liverpool respectively.
Finland’s Eurovision Journey
Finland debuted in the 1961 Eurovision Song Contest, finishing 10th with Laila Kunnunen’s “Valoa ikkunassa.” Since then they have competed 56 times, and appeared in the final 48 times. Finland has finished in the top 10 an impressive 14 times. They have won the contest once in 2006, with Lordi’s performance of “Hard Rock Hallelujah” getting 292 points.
Finland’s most recent entry was “Cha Cha Cha” by Käärijä. He won the first semi-final in Liverpool, thus qualifying for the final. At the close of voting, he gained a total of 526 points, earning them 2nd place – Finland’s second best result of all time. Käärijä received 376 points from the televote, and an extra 150 points from the juries.
What did you think of Käärijä’s Eurovision performance? Are you excited for his new album? As always, let us know what you think by commenting below. Also, be sure to follow “That Eurovision Site” on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Tiktok as we start gearing up for next year’s Contest!
News Source: Hotpress
Photo Credit: Corinne Cumming/EBU
